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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Legal Professions - From: 1900 To: 1929

This page lists 33 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.


 
 Powell v Powell; 1900 - [1900] 1 Ch 243

 
 Bullivant v Attorney-General for Victoria; PC 1900 - [1901] AC 196; [1900] 2 QB 163
 
In re Gray [1901] 1 Ch 239
1901

Cozens-Hardy J
Legal Professions
The tenant of a mine was liable to pay the landlord's costs of the grant of the lease. The tenant's liability was based on custom, which required the tenant to pay the costs of drawing, settling and completing the lease. The tenant asked for an assessment of the bill of costs. The bill included a disbursement relating to fees paid to a mining expert. Held: The court's jurisdiction over solicitors as it officers is compensatory and not punitive, it retains a disciplinary slant to act "to enforce honourable conduct on the part of the Court's own officers."
Cozens-Hardy J said: "Now, it is well settled that the bill to be taxed is the bill between the solicitor and his own client; and that the third party can only tax it on the condition of paying what is due to the solicitor from his own client, which may be more than the client, if he had paid it, could have recovered over from the third party."
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Wright v Carter; CA 1903 - [1903] 1 Ch 27
 
In Re Longbotham and Sons [1904] 2 Ch 152
1904
CA
Romer LJ
Legal Professions, Costs
The borrower had agreed to pay the lender's solicitors bill, but challenged it saying that it included elements for personal work. Held: The personal items were excluded. Costs which are outside the scope of the third party's liability "would not have to be taxed or considered". In other words it is no part of the assessment that such costs are taxed or considered. Romer LJ said: "When a third party taxes a bill under s. 38 of the Act of 1843, it is clear, both from the wording of the section itself and the authorities, that the taxation must be on the footing of a taxation between the solicitor and the client. But the third party is not for all purposes in connection with the taxation to be treated as if he were himself the client. For instance, when the client has paid the bill, and might not be able to shew special circumstances sufficient to entitle him to have the bill taxed, it does not follow of necessity that the third party is thereby precluded from obtaining taxation."
A third party asked to pay a solicitors bill is entitled to have extraneous matters excluded. Romer LJ said: "Again, the solicitor may have acted for the client in more than one completed matter, and the client may not be entitled as against the solicitor to obtain delivery of a bill and taxation, except on the footing of having all the matters included and taxed. But if the third party be only interested in and liable to pay the costs of one matter, it is clear in my opinion, as a matter of principle, that under s. 38 he can obtain taxation of the bill so far as concerns that one matter only, and on the footing of being liable to pay only the taxed costs of that matter. And that principle really decides this case, and shews that the appeal should fail. For in the present case the third party is a mortgagor, and he is only interested in the relations between the solicitor and his client so far as they concern the position of the client strictly in his character of mortgagee. The mortgagor, therefore, is entitled under s. 38 to have taxation of the solicitors' bill limited to the items of costs incurred by the client strictly in his position of mortgagee."
Romer LJ said: "It may well be that the client, as between himself and the solicitor, is liable for costs incurred in relation to the mortgaged property with which the mortgagor is not concerned, and for which the mortgagor is not liable. Those will be costs incurred by the mortgagee in his personal capacity so far as concerns the mortgagor, and not costs incurred by him in the capacity of mortgagee strictly and properly considered, and accordingly would not have to be taxed or considered by the taxing master in a taxation by the mortgagor as third party."
Solicitors Act 1843 38
1 Citers



 
 Council of the Law Society of Scotland v McKinnie (No 2) and Caledonian Railway Company v Glasgow Corporation; 1905 - 1905, 7 F 1020
 
In re Ainsworth, ex parte the Law Society [1905] 2 KB 103
1905

Lord Alverstone CJ
Legal Professions
An unqualified person who gives notice of appearance is thereby acting in contravention of section 2 of the 1843 Act. The relevant rule of court required a notice of appearance to be given either by the defendant himself or his solicitor.
Solicitors Act 1843 2
1 Citers


 
Edmundson v Render [1905] 2 Ch 320
1905

Buckley J
Employment, Legal Professions
The court considered a suggestion that a solicitor was not in breach of a non-compete clause promising to refrain from practising within a certain area where the work was carried out from an office outside the area.
Buckley J said: "The other [class of case] which I think would be equally a breach, is as follows. Suppose a client residing within the prohibited area comes to Harrogate to consult the solicitor, and the solicitor, after taking time to consider the matter, advises him by letter sent to him at his address within the prohibited area, is he acting as solicitor within the area? In my opinion he is. It does not matter whether he goes in person to the man 's house and says 'I advise you' so and so, or whether he writes him a letter and says, 'I advise you' so and so."
1 Citers


 
Re Cohen and Cohen [1905] 2 Ch 137
1905
CA
Vaughan Williams, Stirling, Romer LLJ
Legal Professions, Costs
Mrs Cotton sued Mr Edwardes for breach of contract; and he claimed against her as to the ownership of a song. Mrs Cotton authorised her solicitors to incur liabilities for unusual expenses, including the employment of leading and junior counsel to settle the statement of claim and to advise on evidence. Before giving instructions for taking these steps she had been advised by the solicitors that the extra costs would have to be paid by herself; and would not be allowed against her opponent even if she were successful in the litigation. Mr Edwardes and Mrs Cotton subsequently settled the actions on terms that Mr Edwardes paid Mrs Cotton's costs "as between solicitor and client relating to the matters in dispute in the said two actions, such costs to be agreed or taxed." The Master said that he had taxed the bill item by item and had decided that unusual charges and luxuries were to be borne by the client (Mrs Cotton) rather than by Mr Edwardes. He therefore disallowed the special fees paid to leading counsel. She appealed. Held: The appeal failed.
Vaughan Williams LJ said that the agreement should be construed as limited to costs that were reasonable proper and necessary in the actions and that by requiring assessment of the bill Mr Edwardes had not enlarged his liability under the agreement.
Romer LJ said: "I think he has contracted to pay solicitor and client costs to be taxed in the ordinary way without regard to any special arrangement which may have extended the client's ordinary liability . . To hold otherwise would be to prevent a third party from obtaining the benefit of s. 38. Either he would have to forego taxation, or if he obtained it would find himself liable to pay sums which could not be anticipated by him, and for which as third party he was not liable." Applying this principle, he held that Mr Edwardes was not liable to pay the costs of instructing leading counsel. As he put it: "it is clear that the items disallowed by the taxing master were items for which Mr Edwardes was not liable."
1 Citers


 
In re Morris [1908] 1 KB 473
1908
CA

Legal Professions
A solicitor taking a security for his costs which was inconsistent with or incompatible with the retention of his lien over the proceeds of litigation should be taken to have abandoned that lien unless it was expressly reserved.
1 Citers


 
Re Hirst and Capes [1908] 1 KB 982
1908


Legal Professions, Costs
If there is an admitted agreement for payment of a solicitor's costs by a third party, and the only question is its true construction, then the costs judge is entitled to decide the question of construction as part of the process of assessment
1 Citers



 
 Cobbett v Wood; 1908 - [1908] 2 KB 420
 
Bottomley v Brougham [1908] 1 KB 584
1908

Channell J
Legal Professions, Insolvency, Defamation
The official receiver is acting in a judicial capacity in making his report and his further report and in conducting the examination under that further report. A judge is privileged from inquiry as to whether he is malicious. Channell J considered whether the OR in carrying out investigative functions came within the doctrine of absolute privilege. He held: "I think, in the first place, that the official receiver has a statutory duty to inquire in a judicial way into certain matters by the Act of 1890, and that in performing that duty he is acting in a judicial capacity. It is quite true that the report is made ex parte, but that makes no difference. A judge in hearing an ex parte application is still acting as a judge, and the absolute privilege applies quite as much as when he is hearing a case in which both parties appear. The fact that this was a preliminary inquiry equally does not prevent it being a judicial enquiry. An inquiry before a magistrate on a charge of murder, for instance, which he has certainly no power to deal with, and as to which he is only inquiring in a preliminary way whether there is a case for committing the accused person for trial, is clearly a judicial proceeding although it is preliminary to trial. It is strongly contended on the part of the plaintiff that there is mischief and danger in allowing absolute privilege in this case, because it is an ex parte statement, and the person against whom the charge is made has no opportunity of meeting it; it appears to me, however, that the answer to that is the very fact that it is preliminary, and that it does lead to further inquiry upon which that person does have that opportunity of explaining and giving his view of the matter, and that, it being obviously known by anybody who sees or reads the report of the official receiver that, qua report, it will lead to future proceedings in which the report may be entirely displaced, that really prevents any serious mischief arising from applying this doctrine to such a proceeding as this. I think, therefore, that this report may be considered to be absolutely privileged on the footing of its being the judgment of a judicial officer upon a matter entrusted to him for inquiry".
However Channell J went on to give an alternative ground for holding that the OR attracted absolute privilege which proceeded on the arguably opposite premise that the function which the OR was exercising was more analogous to that of a prosecutor than a judge: "But, even if that is not sound, there is the further ground that the report of the official receiver may be treated, not so much as the judgment in a judicial proceeding, but as the initial stage of proceedings in the winding-up Court, which clearly is a Court. It is the information upon which the proceedings take place and it is made by the official receiver under a statutory duty. It seems to me to come within the authority of the case of Lilley v Roney 61 L.J. (Q.B.) 727, and to be a much stronger case, because in that case complaint by a person who considered himself aggrieved by the conduct of a solicitor - a complaint which was the initiation of proceedings before the Law Society - was held to be privileged as being the commencement of proceedings of a legal character. I quite agree that there the privilege was rather the privilege of a litigant than the privilege of the judge; it was the privilege of a man who was starting proceedings. It is perhaps not quite accurate to say the official receiver is in any sense a litigant, but when he comes before the winding-up Court upon the examination no doubt he is, in one sense, a party to the proceedings; he is, as it were, appearing for the prosecution. It is much the same as when the Attorney-General appears upon an information filed by the Attorney-General; he is then a party to the proceedings possibly, not a litigant, and I should say certainly not acting as a judge, but I do not see that that much affects the matter here. In presenting this report the official receiver is informing the Court of alleged matters for inquiry, and so initiating a judicial enquiry; and it seems to me to be entirely analogous to what was held to be absolute privilege in Lilley v Roney, and to be a stronger case. It was done in the course of the performance of a duty imposed upon him in his position of officer of the Court. It is much like the report of an official referee, or someone of that sort, to whom matters are referred to report to the Court. I suppose no one would doubt that those reports were privileged."
1 Citers


 
Re Ellis and Ellis (1908) 25 TLR 38
1908


Legal Professions
A client's former solicitors were ordered to deliver up payment vouchers to the trustee in bankruptcy of the former client.
1 Citers


 
United Mining and Finance Corporation Ltd v Becher [1910] 2 KB 296
1910

Hamilton J
Legal Professions
Becher (a solicitor) received £2,000 from a party with whom his Russian client was negotiating, on his undertaking that, if the negotiations were unsuccessful, he would pay it back. The negotiations were unsuccessful, but Becher would not repay the money, because there was an argument that his client was due that sum from those with whom he had been negotiating in any event. They issued an Originating Summons. Held: The injunction requiring him to satisfy the injunction was granted. The Court has jurisdiction summarily to enforce solicitors' undertakings given out of Court, even where there is no suggestion of impropriety. The failure to honour an undertaking is itself prima facie evidence of misconduct. The court would be exercising a special control over its officers.
1 Citers



 
 Yonge v Toynbee; CA 1910 - [1910] 1 KB 215

 
 Bank of Montreal v Stuart; PC 1911 - [1911] AC 120
 
Rakusen v Elliss, Munday and Clark [1912] 1 Ch 831
1912


Legal Professions
A firm of solicitors had two partners, who did business separately without having any knowledge of the affairs of each other's clients. The plaintiff consulted one partner in an action for wrongful dismissal a company. He changed his solicitors and after a writ had been issued, the matter was referred to arbitration. The other solicitor knew nothing about the earlier instructions, and he accepted instructions to act for the company defendant in the arbitration. The plaintiff sought an injunction against the firm. Held: The injunction was refused. There was no general rule that a solicitor, having acted for some person either before or after litigation could not act for the opposite side. Each case depends upon its own facts. The court must be satisfied in each case that “mischief would result from the solicitor acting”, for the new client before an injunction would be granted.
1 Citers



 
 Lloyd v Grace, Smith and Co; HL 1912 - [1912] AC 716; [1912] UKHL 1

 
 Lord Ashburton v Pape; CA 1913 - [1913] 2 Ch 469

 
 Nocton v Lord Ashburton; HL 1914 - [1914] AC 932

 
 Lovesy v Palmer; 1916 - [1916] 2 Ch 233; [1916-1917] All ER 1034
 
Moody v Cox and Hatt [1917] 2 Ch 71
1917
CA
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR, Scrutton LJ, Warrington LJ
Legal Professions, Land, Trusts
An action was brought for rescission of a contract of sale of a public house and four cottages, with a counterclaim for specific performance. The sellers, Hatt and Cox, were respectively a solicitor and his managing clerk. They were the trustees of a will trust, and were selling as such. In addition Hatt acted as solicitor for the purchaser Moody. The contract price was £8,400. Moody complained that Cox had failed to disclose to him a valuation showing the property to be worth less than the contract price, and that Cox had expressly asserted that the cottages were worth £225 each when he knew that they were worth less. A "clean hands" issue arose from the fact that Moody had paid two sums of £100 to Cox as a sweetener. Since Hatt and Cox were selling as trustees, they had a duty to their beneficiaries to obtain the best price reasonably obtainable. It was argued that this modified the extent of Hatt's duty, as a solicitor, to Moody as his client. Held: The argument was decisively rejected. A fiduciary with two principals must take care not to find himself in a position where there is an actual conflict of duty so that he cannot fulfil his obligations to one principal without failing in his obligations to the other:
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR said: "A man may have a duty on one side and an interest on another. A solicitor who puts himself in that position takes upon himself a grievous responsibility. A solicitor may have a duty on one side and a duty on the other, namely, a duty to his client as solicitor on the one side and a duty to his beneficiaries on the other; but if he chooses to put himself in that position it does not lie in his mouth to say to the client 'I have not discharged that which the law says is my duty towards you, my client, because I owe a duty to the beneficiaries on the other side'. The answer is that if a solicitor involves himself in that dilemma it is his own fault. He ought before putting himself in that position to inform the client of his conflicting duties, and either obtain from that client an agreement that he should not perform his full duties of disclosure or say - which would be much better - 'I cannot accept this business.' I think it would be the worst thing to say that a solicitor can escape from the obligations, imposed upon him as solicitor, of disclosure if he can prove that it is not a case of duty on one side and of interest on the other, but a case of duty on both sides and therefore impossible to perform."
Scrutton LJ referred to evidence given by the defendant solicitor, Mr Cox to the effect that he, Cox, knew that the price the client, Moody, was paying for the cottages was a good deal more than the value that had been placed on the cottages for probate purposes and that he, Cox, had not told the client the amount of the probate valuation.
He continued: "A man who says that admits in the plainest terms that he is not fulfilling the duty which lies upon him as a solicitor acting for a client. But it is said that he could not disclose that information consistently with his duty to his other clients, the cestius que trust. It may be that a solicitor who tries to act for both parties puts himself in such a position that he must be liable to one or the other, whatever he does. The case has been put of a solicitor acting for vendor and a purchaser who knows of a flaw in the title by reason of his acting for the vendor, and who, if he discloses that flaw in the title which he knows as acting for the vendor, may be liable to an action by his vendor, and who, if he does not disclose the flaw in the title, may be liable to an action by the purchaser for not doing his duty as solicitor for him. It will be his fault for mixing himself up with a transaction in which he has two entirely inconsistent interests, and solicitors who try to act for both vendors and purchasers must appreciate that they run a very serious risk of liability to one or the other owing to the duties and obligations which such curious relation puts upon them."
1 Citers


 
Ellingsen v Det Skandinaviske Compani [1919] 2 KB 567
1919
CA

Legal Professions, Costs
The court considered an apportionment of the legal costs as between the parties. Held: On the authorities, each client was only liable to the solicitors for half of the costs of the joint items of defence and the whole of any separate items of defence.
1 Citers


 
Fletcher and Son v Jubb, Booth and Helliwel [1920] 1 KB 275
1920
CA
Scrutton LJ
Legal Professions, Professional Negligence
Scrutton LJ said: "it would be extremely difficult to define the exact limit by which the skill and diligence which a solicitor undertakes to furnish in the conduct of a case is bounded, or to trace precisely the dividing line between that reasonable skill and diligence which appears to satisfy his undertaking, and that crassa negligentia, or lata culpa mentioned in some of the cases, for which he is undoubtedly responsible. It is a question of degree and there is a borderland within which it is difficult to say whether a breach of duty has or has not been committed."
1 Citers



 
 Adams v London Improved Motor Coach Builders Ltd; CA 1921 - [1921] 1 KB 495
 
Adams v London Motor Builders [1921] 1 KB 495
1921


Legal Professions, Contract
A plaintiff whose claim was being supported and paid for by a trade union was nevertheless liable to the solicitor instructed by the Union for that solicitor's costs.
1 Citers



 
 Lockett v Norman-Wright; 1925 - [1925] Ch 56
 
Sadd v Griffin [1928] 2 KB 510
1928
CA
Farwell LJ
Legal Professions
Farwell LJ said: "it is settled beyond controversy that the solicitor is, for the purposes of taxation, bound by the bill that he has delivered and cannot alter it without the leave of the Court or the consent of the party."
Solicitors Act 1843
1 Citers


 
More v Weaver [1928] EWCA Civ 1; [1928] 2 KB 520
11 Jul 1928
CA
Scrutton, Lawrence, Greer LJJ
Defamation, Legal Professions
The appellant brought the latest of several actions, this time alleging defamation in letters from the respondent to her own solicitors making certain statements about the appellant. Those letters had become public in the course of the earlier proceedings. The court was now asked whether such correspondence was subject to absolute privilege. Held: This is a case of absolute, not qualified, privilege, and there was no ground for leaving to the jury the question whether the statements complained of were relevant. Swift J. was right in the view he took, and the appeal must be dismissed.
1 Cites

[ Bailii ]
 
Minter v Priest [1929] 1 KB 655
1929
CA
Lawrence LJ, Greer LJ
Legal Professions
An issue was whether conversations between a solicitor and his client relating to the business of obtaining a loan for the deposit on the purchase of real estate were privileged from disclosure. Held: They were privileged. The were within to "the ordinary scope" of a solicitor's business or duties. Greer LJ referred to the "ordinary scope of a solicitor's employment".
1 Citers



 
 Inche Noriah v Shaik Allie Bin Omar; PC 1929 - [1929] AC 127

 
 Hagart and Burn-Murdoch v Inland Revenue Commissioners; HL 1929 - [1929] AC 386
 
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